Shit items that you never replace.

[ArseInTheCoOpWindow]

We have 2.

A washing up bowl bought 7 years ago for 3 quid. Part of it’s melted. It’s bleached and cleaned properly every week. The other day Dh suggested we buy a new one. We were both staggered by it😲

A shit mirror we took from Dmil house when she died. We painted the mahogany frame white. But it looks shit. You can see the mahogany. It’s just shit. And l like my interiors. But this peiceof shit hangs there. I suggested we buy a new one tonight. Again we were shocked that we hadn’t thought of it before.

A plastic seive that’s melted and broken . Yet we continue to use it🤷🏼‍♀️

@LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet

ok confession time, I actually cried when I had to throw my kettle out. It had stopped switching itself off once boiled. Not the end if the world for msny, but my brain fog is SO bad & I was so used to it switching itself off I knew it was only a matter of time before it boils dry & maybe started a fire?!

so I bought a new one, it sat along side the old one, I didn't like it, I gave it the side eye, I hugged the old one. Finally inched it towards the door & finally put it in the car boot. Still hugging it. Lots of tears. Properly cried when putting it in the 'small electricals recycling'. It wasn't even one given to me by someone special. Just a cheap one I bought when I moved in here post separating with ex DP.

so some memories & had been great for 12 years, but it's a kettle right?!?!

I need help!!

I need to declutter, but unless I can give something to someone or a charity shop where I know someone 'look after it/want it' it's impossible!

arghhhh

None of the doors in our house shut particularly well - they are the cheap ones put in by the builder who built this estate I think. I don’t know if it’s the doors themselves, or the hinges and catches/handles, but they all rattle in the frames.

Mostly this isn’t a problem, because most of the doors stay open most of the time (apart from bathroom/loo, obvs) - but the one that pisses me off is our bedroom door. I like the door shut at night (to keep the monsters out), and most of the time, I like the window open (the monsters can’t climb up to the window), and the draught through the room makes the door rattle of and on all night, and keeps me awake.

We could try replacing the catches, to see if that helped - it wouldn’t be too expensive - but instead I have taken the belt of a fleecy dressing gown that is hanging on the door, and wound it in a figure of eight between the inside and outside handles, so there is a wodge of fabric that wedges the door shut and stops it rattling.

We’ve got a plastic washing basket which is a faded yellowy colour but was once apparently bright orange. Totally falling apart but it was my grandma’s so my mum refuses to throw it away! Not sure when it’s from, I guess 70s or 80s? My grandma died in 1989 so before then anyway, and long enough for my mum to actually associate it with her mum. I don’t mind holding on to stuff like that even if it doesn’t work very well. It does the job enough.

I have a sieve bought in my student days, 15 years ago! It’s cheap and flimsy and half the handle has fallen off so you have to hold it really close to the sieve part yet I haven’t replaced it! I’ve replaced my entire kitchen twice in that time 😂

My DCs would say the microwave. Its at least 20 years old, has a dial instead of a digital display and the markings on the dial have faded so I've had to go over them with silver marker pen.

But actually its a bloody good microwave, so keeping it.

An extending clothes prop which extends no more due to being repaired by four garden canes and duct tape when it broke. It's donkeys years old, but it still does the job.
A perfect sized pan which lost it's handle, it's fine as long as you don't fill it too much, or the water leaks out from the holes which the handle was screwed into.
Many years ago, the handle came off the garage door. It's one of those doors that you lift from the bottom. The only way to open it now is to hook a crowbar under the bottom of the door and pull.
Like the poster up thread, I have a fine selection of wooden spoons, yet I keep going back to the old battered one.
A metal teapot with a hinged lid. The hinge is sprained so it doesn't close properly any more, rather than use a different one, I still use it daily. You just need to be careful not to overfill it or you get a waterfall of tea via the lid.

Also have a toaster that only cooks on one side so lots of turning of bread, bought a new toaster when I moved home 3 years ago and it is still boxed in the loft.

I'm from London so kettles have an inherently short life no matter how often you descale them.

When I was much younger and very, very poor, my ex-bf and I let a kettle get extremely limescaley. We finally descaled it, and the whole thing just fell to bits. It was the limescale holding it together.

This has just reminded me that I used to have an ancient Fiat 126. Ridiculous 2 cylinder little thing that I absolutely adored. For some strange reason there were two little handles in it - one the choke and the other one the starter. But the starter one broke and it was horrifically expensive to repair so I spend the best part of a year starting my car with a stick. Some of the looks I used to get when the starter stick was used were hilarious. I finally had to give in and get it repaired properly when one of the cylinder heads used to pop out in a regular basis and I’d have to drive home at about 10 miles an hour.

@peaceandove
I like to replace broken things because I grew up in a make do and mend (or more often just making do and not bothering to mend) home and I hated sitting on the floor by the TV holding the channel knob all night - a little this way for BBC1, a little that way for BBC2, slightly clockwise for Channel 4 and RTE. Or trying to make a cake using the egg beater because the 18 year old hand mixer had conked out a month ago and replacing it was a matter that had to be carefully deliberated.

But if a simple repair is going to take me a few hours (and I've learned from experience that everything takes longer in real life than it does in YouTube tutorials) it's hard to prioritise it if the thing in need of repair is sort of working.

A saucepan. The screw holding the handle in has become so loose that the handle wobbles constantly, bends when it has any kind of weight in and comes off completely at least once a week. Obviously pretty dangerous because it usually has something hot in it, but we’ve become so used to it. It’s probably needed replacing for about 3 years now.

Cheese grater. The handle snapped off about a year ago but we still use it and hold it awkwardly. It only cost £1…and I do have another, we just still use that one.

My car key remote stopped working. It's not a battery problem, it needs totally replacing. I just use it like a normal key now! 🙃 I haven't had remote locking in years!

A small apple shaped chopping board it is full of scratches and knackered but its the one i use the most and cant seem to put it in the bin

We’ve still got the height chart on the wall for the previous two sets of owners, the first few entries are from before I was born though so I don’t have the heart to paint over it! Also dc have added to it so I think we’ve inherited it now!

Melted plastic chopping boards.
A slightly broken sieve.
The cheese grater with handle that collapses if you put pressure on it.
The TV remote where you have to beat the buttons into submission to change channel.
The china coaster by my bed that has been glued back together twice after dropping it.
All of the laundry baskets have broken handles, but we keep them because the cats scratch them, so any new ones would be trashed quite quickly.
Towels with holes and raggy edges.
Tea towels that are more hole than fabric.
Slippers held together with duct tape
My in-the-house cardigan with all the holes.

None of those things have bothered me enough to replace them; they all function just about well enough.

I discovered one day that the lid from a milk carton is a perfect fit for my sink.

We moved into a house a year ago. The kitchen was very expensive when put in but the appliances are just at the age where they are failing. But we want to do an extension before we replace the kitchen so we are living with it.

It has a fridge with a fault that beeps loudly and incessantly every time the door opens.

There is something wrong with the dishwasher drawer so it won't lay flat. Loading crockery on a rolling surface is a hazardous sport.

The hob randomly switches itself on.

This post has made me realise we really need to replace the kitchen...

Our kitchen bin. The mechanism has broken so you have to hit the top repeatedly to make it open.
It makes me so angry, yet still I don't buy a new one...

What make is it? My sister insisted on spending £££ on a Brabantia bin as she knows her husband (who objected to the cost)...... they have a lifetime guarantee so every time he heavy handedly knackers up the mechanism, she rings them and they send a new one! Oddly enough, he now agrees that she was right to insist!

I've got a brabantia bin, got it in a sale. Had it nearly 20 years it has never failed its just like new.

Why are so many of your things melted?

We have a whisk that is basically a stick and we still use it

@thisismylittlebrotherGeorge

I wish l knew. Stupid shape of our kitchen doesn’t help🤯

@viques he is adorable. I buy dh a lot of eggcups. He seldom eats a boiled egg but still...😁

Thankyou. Funnily enough when I left home at 18 I didn’t take him ( he didn’t quite fit into the living my best life in London in the sixties vibe I was aiming for) , but I found him on the top shelf of my mums kitchen cupboard a couple of years later when she had done two house moves with him, and promptly reclaimed him! Thank heavens I did, when my mum died soon after, my evil stepfather cleared and binned everything of hers, including all our family photos. I think that is why he means so much.

OMG! I'm so sorry what an evil inadequate man. Does he have a name? Eggcup not evil stepfather...